NEW DELHI: Come 2014, the IPL auction could be conducted in Indian rupees due to fluctuating exchange rates. According to sources in the Indian cricket board (BCCI), the IPL governing council is mulling the move to help the franchises get a clear idea of what a player's actual salary will be.

"The auction is likely to be held in rupees rather than dollars. The IPL think tank wants to bring in this change," a top BCCI official told TOI on Tuesday.

In its inaugural auction in 2008, IPL had a standard rate of Rs 40 per dollar irrespective of the market value of the currencies. To this day, Indian cricketers are paid at the same rate. But as the rupee's value fell drastically, team owners had to shell out more for foreign cricketers.

Sources said some team owners had discussed this issue with the IPL bosses back then but nothing happened. Sources said next year's auction would be held in dollars. From the following year, when the contracts of all cricketers come to an end, players will be paid in Indian rupees.

It is also learned that most IPL teams want all the players in the auction pool at the 2014 auction and the BCCI is mulling over this issue, sources told TOI. Another demand from the teams is that the Indian domestic cricketers should be put in the auction like foreign domestic players who land up making more money. "This is an Indian league and our domestic cricketers should be treated at par with the domestic cricketers from foreign countries," said an official.

It was learnt that one team wants the IPL's governing council to consider minimum sponsorship rates for every team. The reason given is that some of the weaker teams at times struggle to get the right price and if there is a minimum rate, it will help those teams maintain sound financial health.

Times View

The shift from dollar auctions to rupee ones makes sense. After all, the league is based in India and franchises would want to have some fix on how much they would need to spend in rupee terms. As long as the exchange rate wasn't too volatile, dollar auctions didn't make too much of a difference, but given the depreciation of the rupee against the dollar, this was bound to cause some strife.

While in the process of changing the auction rules, the IPL should also do away with the salary cap on uncapped players. All the cap does is to open up scope for under-the-table deals with really promising youngsters, thus exposing them to corrupt practices. The more transparency we can have, the better.